Appeal No. 1998-2899
Application No. 08/632,687
circumference which is greater than the inner circumference of
the printing sleeve as recited in claim 32.
In addition, while we recognize that Arkell does suggest
a printing plate vacuum hold down system including a cylinder
having either circumferential grooves 11 (Fig. 1) or axial
grooves 22 (Fig. 2), we know of no reason why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been motivated to substitute the
axially extending grooves disclosed in Arkell, which are
connected to a vacuum within the mounting cylinder to maintain
a printing plate in position during operation of the printing
press, for the circumferential grooves 10b disclosed in Figure
1 of Fellows, which are connected to pressurized air inside
the printing cylinder to expand a printing sleeve during
mounting of the sleeve on the cylinder. Along this same line,
it is not absolutely clear to us that the axially extending
grooves 22 in Arkell, which are interconnected by a single
circumferential groove 24 to the interior of the cylinder,
would successfully perform the function of the circumferential
grooves 10b in the embodiment shown in Figure 1 of Fellows.
13
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007